


The Devil's Right Hand

by MsFehrwight



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-10
Updated: 2013-02-10
Packaged: 2017-11-28 20:49:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/678741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsFehrwight/pseuds/MsFehrwight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not all jobs run smooth, and sometimes even a practiced hunter can get surprised. A take on the relationship between the sniper and the consulting criminal, with a side of revenge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Devil's Right Hand

**Author's Note:**

> I don't think I've ever worked on a fic this much. Lots of love and thanks and huggles to my beta and respondent and guinea pig Kay, who's been putting up with this since September -12.

I

_Incapacitated. Set-up._

Jim first. Always Jim first. It’s a wonder Sebastian manages to type a coherent message with the black void looming, and left-handed, no less. Jim first. Then away, no evidence, dissemble, pack up, pack up, ignore pain, grind your teeth, getting away is priority now that Jim’s on track. The bastards will have called the cops, not to get him caught but to make him work faster for an escape that is like to be narrow. Twisted fucks – although he’s one to talk, look for whom he’s working, Jim is easily equal to this degree of sick arse-holery. It’s just that Sebastian isn’t usually at the receiving end, not like this, anyway. Jim enjoys making his life difficult and painful, but Jim also knows Sebastian’s limits, knows how far he can be pushed, likes to drive him right to the edge and some way along it, but never tips him over.

The situation is nothing new to Sebastian, per se. He’s been in tight spots before, but the void beckons, offers release from the excruciating pain of broken bones. His body moves on its own, familiar routines drilled into his very marrow. Thank you, Royal Army, for the ability to take apart a rifle and pack it without a thought to what the hands are doing; all of Sebastian’s concentration is employed in keeping him conscious. His right hand throbs, pumps pain up his arm, his ribs scream bloody murder, and he can taste blood. Dissembling the rifle one-handed is not easy, although Sebastian has done it numerous times, kept in practice just in case. He curses when the suppressor resists, wrenches at it and has to take a few precious seconds to catch his breath as the cold white flame of pain passes through him. He thinks he can hear the sirens, but can’t be sure, there’s a ringing in his ears.

Quick, quick, pack up, stand up, easy now. Sebastian scrambles to the door that will take him off the roof that is slippery with rain and into the stairs where he trips and stumbles but manages all six floors without further injury. The cold, wet night air greets him again as he bursts out to the street. It fills his lungs. Wet tarmac reflects the city lights. He can definitely hear the sirens now.

He gets a few streets away before his legs start to give out and he’s forced to take refuge in an alley. He collapses against the wall, the pain is getting too much. His breath comes in shallow, ragged gasps now. His feet won’t carry. The rain caresses Sebastian’s face as he lets the void draw him into the soft velvet of unconsciousness.

 

II

He wakes up to the faint yellow electric light and the sound of a toilet flushing somewhere. Doors open, close, and someone lithe enters the room, all in the space of time it takes Sebastian to force himself to wakefulness.

“So…” drawls a voice, moving closer, soon next to him. Carefully, Sebastian turns his head, and finds the black, emotionless eyes of his employer examining him.

“Boss,” he acknowledges, voice hoarse, tries to nod, tries to understand visual cues through the haze that clouds his brain.

“What happened?” Jim is impatient, annoyed, and Sebastian would love to explain, but the details keep escaping him, and it’s details Jim is going to want.

“Fuck it, Moran!”

Silence has gone on too long. Jim picks up something from the bedside table and hurls it at the wall against which it shatters. The alarm clock, Sebastian’s brain idly concludes by the sound. Then the man in the suit clutches his head and takes a few deep breaths.

“You’re drugged,” he murmurs, and Sebastian can’t be sure whether the words are addressed to him or serve to help the criminal mastermind calm his quick-heating temper. Sebastian keeps silent, waits, and finally Jim lets out a heavy sigh, lowers his hands, and stands up straight.

“Get some sleep. I’ll talk to you when you’re not high,” he says, eyes cold, but softening ever so slightly when Sebastian struggles to sit up. Jim lays a hand on his chest and pushes him down.

“Sleep, Basher,” he says, and it’s not a request. Sebastian gives in and slides back to sleep.

 

III

Jim Moriarty has calls to take. He set the word out almost twenty hours ago, and now the only pieces missing are the smallest details. Sebastian, of course, could have provided him with all the intel he needs, but the colonel is out cold for now, much to Jim’s dismay. The rage that consumed him the previous night has dissipated, and its place has been taken by cold calculation. Incapacitating his chief of staff, his right-hand man, his _best goddamn sniper_ is a direct insult that cannot be tolerated. This is not about Sebastian being careless. Jim knows Basher, and Basher doesn’t do careless. No. It’s about the bastards sending Jim a message: we’re good and we’re on your turf. So come and play.

Jim will play, oh yes, but he doubts it’s a game they’ll want to see through. They may be good, they may be clever, they may know their business – but they don’t know Jim. They probably think they do, that they’ve got him figured out, and they most definitely must know he is willing to go far, but there is only one person in the world who knows just how far, and that is Jim himself.

Phone rings. Last detail. Yes, .4 calibre. Jim’s brain goes _click click click click_ , the picture is whole, everything in its place. After he cuts off the informant he makes a call of his own. Trellis the doctor picks up right away. He’s clearly been on stand-by since his visit the night before. Wise. This is one of the reasons he’s been working for Jim for so long. The doc is corrupt, twisted, and has seen it all, just like Jim likes them. Only Trellis is allowed to attend to Sebastian right now. Jim won’t trust anyone else with the sniper’s fingers. They are too valuable, those long digits that work the parts of any firearm so deftly and with such gentle efficiency that Jim shudders and has to force his attention away even from the thought of them. Now’s not the time.

Trellis pours instructions into his ear. Dressings, hydration, rest, careful, realignment, does Mr Moriarty want morphine delivered? Yes, Mr Moriarty does. It is questionable whose veins it will end up in though. Jim shakes the thought fast, despite the part of him that yearns for a relief from the boredom of life. He needs to stay sharp, can’t afford the chance he can’t function if things escalate quicker than anticipated. There is a hierarchy to resettle, morons to be put into their place, a reputation to avenge. There is a plan to concoct, to execute, to keep him diverted.

Morphine coming, sir.

Good.

Off the phone, Jim lets his mouth curl into a small smile. If the bastards are as clever as they fancy themselves this might prove entertaining. Jim looks forward to having Sebastian back on his feet, the vindictive anger of the soldier having in the past lead to situations that have given him unwarranted joy. Sebastian is thorough in his ways, even in the grip of rage, and the expectation of approaching chance of violence builds up in him most beautifully until it’s visible and barely contained. Jim delights in uttering the word, giving the signal that releases the beast. Alas, those occasions are all too rare, as the colonel has grown acclimatised to offense, to cocky bastards, to petty arse-holes, and does not get suitably worked up as often as Jim would like.

But this, this is now personal, and Jim knows Basher will be at his best, a prowling tiger going for the kill.

There is the matter of his fingers, but they have to wait for Trellis’s word. Some decisions that Jim has to make depend on the doc’s verdict. But no matter what, decisions can be put on hold until after revenge.

Because Jim feels Basher deserves at least that much.

 

IV

Bedridden and high on sedatives, Sebastian thinks. His first thoughts are of Jim again, of Jim’s empire. There’s an intruder, someone who thinks they can challenge the mastermind. Normally Sebastian would take them for pure idiots for thinking that, but this time he is not fully convinced. They did, after all, get to him, and through him to Jim. This will end ugly, if the cunts are as good as they pretend to be. On the other hand, he reflects, feeling the dull ache all around his body, this might get ugly anyway once he and Jim get their revenge. For surely Jim includes his right-hand man in his plans.

Right-hand man. Well, Sebastian’s right hand isn’t serviceable, won’t be for weeks to come. Trellis has been by a few times now, checking up and telling him how much more time the broken fingers still need to heal. It’s not the fingers that keep Sebastian in the bed, it’s the cracked ribs, but the fingers are what he worries about. He hasn’t seen Jim in two weeks now, save for two short interviews that were more like cross-questionings for which Trellis took him off the meds.

What does the consulting criminal do when his right hand becomes useless? He hacks it off, and Sebastian is afraid of the axe. If his fingers don’t heal properly, if he loses his ability to pull the trigger, the game is over, no chance of restart. Trellis, however, says the healing is going well, there’s no need for surgery, and Sebastian has taken it there’s no reason to assume he wouldn’t be able to handle a rifle again.

But there is the little matter of his having screwed up, having let his guard down and being too confident in the plan, and with Jim one false move is enough to earn one a death sentence. At his most paranoid Sebastian has been suspicious of the morphine shots Trellis administers him. But then he remembers Jim, what he is like, Jim wouldn’t poison him, or, Sebastian flatters himself, it would not be done by an underling but by Jim’s own hand. He tries stretching his fingers, staring at the top joints that peek out from the cast. A little shot of pain throbs, dulled by the drugs, and he lets his hand relax. Some way to go yet. And even the healed fingers and returned usefulness might not gain him his life.

Sometimes thinking about all of this in the night makes his breathing go fast and shallow, his sympathetic reactions fire up, and the adrenalin flows. The possibilities flash through his mind over and over, tormenting him. Either Jim will keep him, undoubtedly torture and demote him, or Jim will kill him. Neither path appeals to him exactly, but with his every fibre he hopes it will be the first one. It would at least keep him working for Jim, close to the consultant, only not as close as he has been. But he could be useful to Jim, and that is what he wants above all else.

Frankly, he thinks it more likely that Jim will finish him off, shoot him in the head with his own M&P 40 perhaps. Well, Sebastian muses, barely conscious to the fact that Trellis is telling him that he’s running a high fever, he’ll take it, whatever comes. If it’s Jim, it’s all right.

Whatever Jim wants.

 

V

Jim has always enjoyed seeing Basher’s need to be useful. Even now it brings a smile to his lips. Such loyalty. So very touching.

Jim had come to the house late in the evening, sick of arse-kissers and idiots. Talking to Sebastian was a treat that night, someone who knew exactly what Jim wanted and needed to hear, didn’t lie, didn’t beat around the bush. Sebastian had been so pale, so meek in his hurt, not at all like Jim’s usual bold predator. With his right hand in a heavy cast, eye swollen shut, the whole side of the soldier bruised black and purple, Jim’s second in command repeated the events of the night he suffered the injuries.

“The chick was set on it,” he said, looking not at Jim but at his lap in recollection. “The supposed mark never showed up. There were four guys, turned up right after I’d set the gear up and was doing preliminary calc. They were on me before I got my knife out. They didn’t say much, just to let you know there was a new cock on the block and that you’d go down. They had average brain capacity, one did the talking, two held me down, one took a fucking crowbar to my fingers and his boot to my ribs. Didn’t really bother to aim. They left, I texted you and scrammed. Or tried to.”

Jim pressed Sebastian for details, looks, accents, dialects, smells, anything. The sniper had observed a lot, to do him justice. He told Jim everything he could; there has never been a reason for Basher to leave anything out, to keep anything from Jim.

It is evident that Sebastian wants revenge. For his fingers, for his professional reputation, for the humiliation. You will get it, Basher, Jim thinks, gazing out the car window. We’ll show them hell like they’ve never imagined it.

 

VI

Sebastian is on his feet again, and still alive. He lets himself think Jim will really allow him revenge before he dies. He’s been cooped up for seven weeks now, practicing his fingers for the last three, finding with pleasure that they work almost as well as before now, although they still feel uncomfortably fragile.

He’s in the kitchen making coffee when he hears Jim come in. The boss wanders into the kitchen and throws himself into a chair at the table, staring languidly at Sebastian.

“A job tomorrow night,” he drawls, dark eyes scrutinising the colonel. “You up to it?”

Sebastian grunts and nods, giddy and excited inside. The walls are getting way too familiar, and Trellis has declared him fit for work as long as he does no heavy lifting. He stretches his back while waiting for the coffee, letting the expectation of work pour through him, sharpen the senses, focus him. Yeah, action will be good. A hunt, he hopes: the wait, the prowl, the kill. That’s what he needs, desperately, to know he’s himself, to know he’s back in the game.

Of course, this job could be Jim luring him out to be killed, but a glance towards the consultant convinces Sebastian it’s not like that. Even the knowledge that Jim is a brilliant actor does nothing to sway him; there would be no need to act. Jim knows Sebastian would not fight back, not if it was what Jim wanted to, needed to do. But there’s no seriousness, only relaxation, in the way the mastermind sits at the table, reaches to pick an apple from the bowl and then takes a bite out of it. So Sebastian allows himself to believe.

“What’s the job?” he asks, trying to hide the schoolboy excitement with cool casualty. Not entirely a success, but Jim’s lips curl slightly, so Sebastian doesn’t care too much.

“Some friends of yours have been very eager to meet me. We’ve finally set up a play date. Thought you might want to accompany me.”

This is it, oh yes, and Sebastian is elated. He hopes he gets to pick his weapons; he would love to take a knife to those bastards, carve them up a bit then cut an artery and let them bleed to death. Or would a tourniquet make it more fun? But maybe Jim has a preference, and Sebastian tries to rein in his excitement. Whatever Jim wants to do, he will take it, and the bastards will pay, even if he has to do it with a fucking shoelace.

He clenches his right hand into a fist before stretching the fingers out again. _Oh yes_.

 

VII

The warehouse is empty when Jim arrives with Sebastian and his watch team. The sniper barks orders, makes sure the men know fucking well what they’re doing, and once he turns expectant eyes to Jim the consultant nods and they enter the slightly run-down building. They don’t have to wait long, barely long enough for Sebastian to melt into the shadows and Jim to make sure his suit hasn’t suffered during the drive.

Five men step in, and the last one of them closes the warehouse door after the group. The almost inaudible click behind Jim informs him Sebastian has sent his team the message to guard the doors. Jim lets a small, amused smile overtake his face and slips his hands into his pockets.

“Mr Moriarty,” greets the man leading the group. He wears clothes much smarter than his henchmen but nothing to rival Jim’s Westwood. The man lacks elegance, although he does seem to have some personal charm and carries himself with confidence. Someone used to being in control, then. “Such a pleasure to finally meet you. I’m very much honoured.”

“Glad you think so,” Jim replies. The thugs behind their leader look nervous, uncomfortable, and very possibly trigger-happy. Also likely incompetent. “You put up quite a show, I must say.”

“Had to get your attention somehow,” the man grins. Well, Jim muses, they will have to see how long he can keep that smile.

“You know my friend, I’m sure,” he says, and cherishes the expression of fear in the eyes of the thugs; he can read Sebastian’s movement and aura on their faces, never having to glance at the sniper who has moved out of the shadows behind him on cat’s feet, a hunter revealing himself to his prey.

The only one who does not betray fear is the leader, who looks at the colonel with wonder and amused astonishment.

“Basher Moran,” he says, and then turns to his shuddering companions. “You fuckers didn’t recognise Basher Moran?” With the grin firm on his face he turns back to look over Jim’s shoulder, acknowledging Sebastian with a nod. “Colonel.”

“Captain.” Sebastian’s voice is terse, clipped. He doesn’t sound tense, however.

“A re-union, I see,” Jim drawls. Basher knows this man; he can leave everything to his second in command and merely enjoy the display of Sebastian taking apart someone whose moves he knows.

“We served in Afghanistan together,” the captain explains brightly. “Admired the hell out of him, let me tell you. He’s crazy, and a fucking genius with a rifle. We were all scared shitless of him. Clever of you to hire him, Mr Moriarty.”

“So nice to chat among old friends,” Jim says, feeling the first tug of impatience. The man is getting less and less interesting now, losing his attention by the second. “Unfortunately, Colonel Moran and I need to be off in a minute, so if you don’t mind, I would like to go straight to business.” A pause, no comments? Good. “I’ll offer you a deal. You can work for me, or you can die right here. All of you. Which will it be?”

“With all due respect, Mr Moriarty,” the captain says, “I was about to offer you the same options.”

Jim arches his brow, a little smile tilting the corner of his lips. This might prove entertaining after all. That is, if he allows it to go on.

“Really?” he asks. “Well. Isn’t this awkward? Although I would say I have the upper hand, with Colonel Moran here, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Unfortunately,” the captain admits, still smiling. “But there’re five of us and two of you. Not to underestimate you, Colonel.”

Sebastian merely grunts at this. Jim is grinning, starting to love it. One of the captain’s men inches his hand towards his ill-concealed hand gun, thinking he’s being stealthy, but Jim sees, and the low warning grunt from behind him tells him his sniper has seen it too.

“Wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Jim points out, staring at the lad with the gun, watching the unnerving effect of his gaze work its way through the kid. “Moran doesn’t like other people holding guns. He gets jealous, you see.”

 

VIII

In the end the idiots didn’t prove much of a challenge, but Sebastian still feels great, and there’s a little spring in his step as he waits for the adrenalin to settle. What this kind of successful job calls for is celebratory sex, but he’s also happy with the cigarette and the company of his boss. Jim seems pleased with him, and that combined with the thrill of the kill is as good a reward as Sebastian could hope for. Even the knowledge of the remaining possibility of his own demise does nothing to bring him any closer to the ground. Fuck, Jim could slit his throat right now and he couldn’t die any happier.

They’re not talking, just walking, Sebastian smoking and Jim lost in his thoughts. What goes on in the mind of the genius, Sebastian can hardly say, but judging by the smile it’s pleasant or bloody, or maybe both, and although a happy Jim is not always a good thing Sebastian gets the feeling that this time it’s very good indeed.

And so what if Jim’s planning his death right now and executes it the moment the door of the Conduit Street offices closes behind them? Sebastian has done his best, always has, only ever the best for Jim, and he’ll die knowing Jim knows it.

The usual sleek black car is waiting for them at the street corner. Sebastian flicks away the butt of his cigarette and climbs in after Jim. A moment later the mastermind’s eyes focus again, like he’s coming back from a waking dream, and he glances at Sebastian.

“So,” he says, in that Jim drawl, and Sebastian is all attention and business. “The Hungarians are coming in next week. I need you to check out the meeting place, do whatever you need to do to make sure we’ll not be bothered. You’ll be dropped off right now. I expect you to report back at six.”

“Yes, sir.”

Sebastian schools his expression until he’s out of the car and has seen it disappear into traffic. Then, he lets a smile take over, fishes another cig out, lights it, and heads towards the place chosen for the meeting with the Magyars.

He’ll live, he knows now. Jim will keep him. And he’ll make damn sure never to let Jim down, no matter what is asked of him. He’ll kill himself if it comes to it, but he will obey every order.

Whatever Jim wants.


End file.
